BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign

Subject: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 07:09 AM

Washington Post

A Campaign to Hate
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, June 3, 2008; Page A15

Wherever I go -- from glittering dinner party to glittering dinner party -- the famous and powerful people I meet (for such is my life) tell me how lucky I am to be a journalist in this the greatest of all presidential contests. I tell them, for I am wont to please, that this campaign is indeed great when, as history will record, it is not. I have come to loathe the campaign.

I loathe above all the resurgence of racism -- or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought. I am stunned by the numbers of people who have come out to vote against Barack Obama because he is black. I am even more stunned that many of these people have no compunction about telling a pollster they voted on account of race -- one in five whites in Kentucky, for instance. Those voters didn't even know enough to lie, which is what, if you look at the numbers, others probably did in other states. Such honesty ought to be commendable. It is, instead, frightening.

I acknowledge that some people can find nonracial reasons to vote against Obama -- his youth, his inexperience, his uber-liberalism and, of course, his willingness to abide his minister's admiration for a racist demagogue (Louis Farrakhan) until it was way, way too late. But for too many people, Obama is first and foremost a black man and is rejected for that reason alone. This is very sad.


I loathe what has happened to Hillary Clinton. This person of no mean achievement has been witchified, turned into a shrew, so that almost any remark of hers is instantly interpreted as sinister and ugly. All she had to do, for instance, was note that it took Lyndon Johnson to implement Martin Luther King's dream, and somehow it became a racist statement. The Obama camp has been no help in this regard, expressing insincere regret instead of a sincere "that's not what she meant."

I loathe also what Hillary Clinton has done to herself. The incessant exaggerations, the cheap shots, the flights into hallucinatory history -- that sniper fire in Bosnia, for instance -- have turned her into a caricature of what her caricaturists long claimed she already was. In this campaign, Clinton has managed to come across as a hungry hack, a Janus looking both forward and backward and seeming to stand for nothing except winning. This, too, is sad.

I loathe what has happened to Bill Clinton.

I loathe what has happened to the press. I loathe the incessant blogging and commenting and talking and yapping and hype. I hate that Clinton's observation that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June ran on and on when everyone save some indigenous people in the Brazilian rain forest knew what she meant. I hate that for days these same outlets discussed the relevancy of whether John McCain could be constitutionally barred from the presidency because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. This, too, is sad.

What is perhaps most surprising, and sad as well, is what can be seen in the rearview mirror. There, reduced to a speck, is the once-huge expectation that the next president would be a Democrat. The current president, after all, has started two wars and completed none, and presides over a palette of debacles that encompasses everything from a crashing economy to a housing catastrophe to an immense loss of American prestige around the world (with the possible exception of those aforementioned indigenous Brazilians). It includes, of course, a lack of trust in an administration that weaseled and fibbed and exaggerated and Cheneyed the American people -- but has (and so the GOP will remind us all) kept the nation safe from another attack. No small matter, it will turn out.

So I see little to be happy about, little that pleases my jaundiced eye. Yes, voter participation is way up and in the end, the Democrats will choose a woman or an African American and, to invoke that tiresome phrase, history will be made. But this messy nominating process has eroded the standing of both candidates. It has highlighted the reality that racism still runs deep and that misogyny, although more imagined than real, is not yet a wholly spent force. This is an ugly porridge that has been placed before us, turned rancid since the cold, pristine days of Iowa only five months ago. We were, with apologies to Bob Dylan, so much younger then.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 07:34 AM

Richard needs a vacation...

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 07:38 AM

Way to address his concerns and comments, Bobert.

Can I use that one the next time you post on Mudcat?

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 08:56 AM

Well, bruce, I think my comment purdy much sums it up... Cohen is obviously burned out by this campaign... There's nothing in it that he finds positive... That is the sign of burn out...

If I am Richard's shrink and he comes to me with these feelings I'd have to tell him that he needs some time away from the campaign...

It wasn't intended to be a flip comment...

Richard ***does*** need a vacation... If I'm his boss I'd tell him the same thing...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 09:00 AM

I will addres Mr. Cohen's points. Here is the biggest:

"The current president, after all, has started two wars and completed none, and presides over a palette of debacles that encompasses everything from a crashing economy to a housing catastrophe to an immense loss of American prestige around the world (with the possible exception of those aforementioned indigenous Brazilians). It includes, of course, a lack of trust in an administration that weaseled and fibbed and exaggerated and Cheneyed the American people..."

Compared to this, his other complaints are mosquito bites. Yeah, Hillary exaggerates and appears grasping and power hungry. Yeah, Obama has attended a church where some pretty flakey people have spoken. Yeah, Bill has behaved in a very un-ex-presidential fashion. But none of this -none- has led directly to the deaths of 4000+ Americans (you know the actual number is way, way, way higher than this - right?) and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

So, Mr. Cohen, a little perspective please. I promise you will feel way better about the way things are going.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 09:37 AM

Bobert,

So, in the future if you make comments about the Bush Administration I can throw them away with

"Bobert is obviously burned out by this topic... There's nothing in it that he finds positive... That is the sign of burn out...

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:24 PM

lol, bruce...

You've never been too shy to say purdy much whatever pops into yer head...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:30 PM

I too think that the behavior of the Democratic candidates has been something less than inspiring. But to think that once one of them actually is chosen that behavior will somehow be weighted against the problems that the current administration has and result in McCain being elected is a fallacy.

I'm not sure that either of the Democratic possibles can solve all of these problems but I know that the Republican candidate doesn't seem interested in actually solving any of them!

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:37 PM

Righto, Chief...

McCain is soon to be the target of alot of punches now that the other fist fight is winding down...

McCain has sopm,e serious problems in that 75% of the voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction and he hasn't made one stand on any front that is outside of "stay the course"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 09:46 AM

Richard needs to bring his loathing and fear to Los Vegas.




Hillary wants to broker some power with the use of her contributors.

She could use them as a stalling technique so that she may buy time to build a time machine.

She could hire a crack Bush team of assasins to clear her as the clear surviving front runner.

She could ask for a package deal of Bill on the high court and her own VP slot.

She could accept the VP slot under McCain.

She could loose the dogs of kevetch and be a spoiler to the bitter end of November.


What ever she does she is behaving exactly as I have warned for years... She is a WEASEL to fear among all the weasels in Weaseldom.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 10:20 AM

I have not seen sings of venality in Obama. It might be more persuasive, Fantz, if you could identify the acts you believe he has committed which qualify him for such a slanderous label. Otherwise, it appears your bile ducts are just overflowing through your mouth.

A

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 10:38 AM

Bobert, we ALL need a vacation!

This 3 year, 11-1/2 month election cycle (and it may even be longer than that) is really enervating. Sweet nothing of value gets done because our leaders are posturing for re-election and/or the next office. I, if I were the one who made the rules, would limit all campaigns for national office to 6-8 weeks tops--including nominating process and final elections--with the winner to take office 10 days after the results are official. Days missed in doing the countries business while campaigning would be deducted from salary and per diem.

In large measure, I place the blame on 24 hour news media which has way more hours than news to fill the time. So their are scores of analysis shows wherein 3 - 4 'experts' expostulate for 65 seconds (75 seconds, accounting for interruptions). And the next day it starts all over again with 3/4 different experts.   I am going to endow a college major in Pundantry with the tens of dollars I'll have left when I die, so at least those talking heads have academic cred.

And its just not politics...it's missing blonde vacationers; it's murder trials, covered live or recreated, but certainly talked to death; its the latest entertainment bimbo (or, rarely, the male counterpart of bimbo). Those programs make infomercials seem like high art.

John ("If I Ruled the World") otSC

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 10:41 AM

Grammar/spelling alert: "Days missed in doing the country's business..."

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 10:43 AM

Ah, but just look at all that moolah the election industry made of us schmucks, JohnotSC! And just MSM moolah--think campaign consulting, "experts", rank and file armies to be fed, housed, transported with expensive fureign oil...

And there is plenty more to be made where that came from--we are just getting warmed up to the biggest Daddy Warbucks Battle in history!

It's gonna make Friday Night Smackdown look like a bunch of school girls playing with their dollies!

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 04:50 PM

I think Cohen's article is an excellent one, BB, and it describes powerfully the corrupt and awful spectacle of what presidential campaigns have become, what they have deteriorated into, in the USA.

If someone other than Bearded Bruce or pdq or another of the very few "official" Mudcat conservatives had posted it, it might be getting a far better hearing, I think, from Bobert and some of my other liberal pals here.

It points out accurately the utterly tawdry and exploitive way the media has siezed upon and harped on every ridiculous excuse they could find to stir up controversy and fuel people's hatred and lack of respect for other people.

It's a horrifying thing to watch this corrupted, media-manipulated-and-dominated American election process from another country, and it's hard to imagine that much good can come out of it, frankly.

I think that Richard Cohen's loathing of the election process in 2008 is fully and absolutely justified. His paraphrasing of Bob Dylan's line as "we were so much younger then" is very apt.

As I've said before...if Obama is a genuinely good man and actually intends to change things in Washington in a fundamental way...God help him. His life won't be worth a plugged nickel. If he is just another corporate-chosen tool, then expect more of the same..."politics as usual"...assuming he gets elected. And if you get McCain? Expect more of the same, only maybe even worse. And if you were to get Hillary? Expect more of the same.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 06:38 PM

L.H.- are you saying that Cohen's article is being shunned here because it was posted by a Conservative? How very short sighted of the Liberal majority here, if that's true?

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Riginslinger
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 09:57 PM

"God help him."


            Not much help, actually!

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 05:38 AM

Looked at from this side of the Atlantic, your election process is like a 24 hour childbirth.

23 hours of pushing, shoving, and screaming, and the poor kid is stillborn.

You need an electoral Caesarian option, to excise wannabees like Hils in a hurry once it becomes clear they are hanging on just to hang on.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 12:38 PM

This year has not seen an unprecendently long campaign. Far from it. It only seems that way.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 01:27 PM

Don, that is such a great observation that I'm going to make it my own (with some modification) when discussing the American election system outside of the 'Cat.

Ebbie, which campaign, in the US, has been officially longer. Unofficially they are now nearly four years, as I pointed out above.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Peace
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 01:35 PM

Cohen has penned a cogent, thoughtful and accurate article.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Riginslinger
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 01:42 PM

"...wannabees like Hils in a hurry once it becomes clear they are hanging on just to hang on."


                   Not necessarily. I donated some money to Hillary's campaign, and now that she's announced that she's going to announce that it's over, her campaign is still e-mailing for requests for donations. It might have something to do with the fact that she lent her campaign 20 million bucks, and the only way it can pay her back is to get more on-line donors to pay her back.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 02:18 PM

I have no opinion one way or the other about the funding issue, and she would certainly be justified in expecting the return of money she loaned to the campaign.

My points were solely about what I perceive as a counterproductive procedure.

Our own electoral system has faults many and various, but it doesn't beat voters into submission with a long drawn out saga, and our politicians WILL concede defeat without actually having to be killed first.

As I said, just the view from my side of the Atlantic, as it appears to me.

IMHO, Hillary has done some considerable harm to Obama, to her party, and even ultimately to herself. She could have avoided that by conceding, and throwing her considerable political weight behind Obama, and her failure to attempt to persuade her voters to transfer may lead to President McCain, and another eight years of inept, corrupt leadership.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 02:43 PM

"God help him" is simply a cultural expression, Riginslinger. It means, "I hope he makes it through somehow, despite the very long odds."...but it's quicker and easier to say.

Here are a few more:

"God knows" - means "I haven't got a frikkin' clue about that"

"God willing" - means "If my luck holds. Got my fingers crossed on this one..."

"Good lord!" - means "Holy shit!" or "Say whattttt??????"

"Heaven knows" - See definition of "God knows" above.

"Jesus H. Christ!" - see definition of "Good lord!" above...

Now if you find any of them objectionable on atheist grounds I seriously suggest you seek emotional counseling... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 05:19 PM

""Don, that is such a great observation that I'm going to make it my own (with some modification) when discussing the American election system outside of the 'Cat.""

I'm flattered, John, and genuinely interested to know what that modification might be.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 05:54 PM

While as bored and irked as any by the l o o o o o o o o ng primary campaign, I'd like to point out that a short, snappy one would have left Hillary as the last one standing.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 06:14 PM

The reality is that this ***has*** been an unusually long campaign... No, not in terms the primaries but in terms of the nation...

As others have appropriately pointed out it bagan purdy much after the '04 election... There are reason for this...

First, it was obvious that there wasn't a VP waiting to run in '08 so that opened up the field.

Second, the American people soured on the Iraq war...

Thirdly, the American people figured out that they have been going backwards economically...

All these things brought about the '06 elections where the Repubs were drubbed... And with this drubbing, the Rwpubs refrused to change course and this made the American peo[ple madder and madder and so, yeah, the American people have waited Bush out and it's been a long wait...

That is why it seems like it has been so long...

As for Richard Cohen???

I'm stickin' with my first response to his op-ed...He's sounds burned out and needs some time away from everything...

And Sunset John is cotrrect... We all need a vacation...But the good news is that it will be here Jan. 20, 2009... The bad news is that gives Bush more time and more opportunities to screw things up even worse...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Peace
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 06:16 PM

The bigger fear is that it gives Bush time to make a desperate grab for the leadership position.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 07:56 AM

IMO, the Democrats had the 2004 (and this election) in the bag- until they decided to run AGAINST (Bush) rather than run FOR (their own policies).

It seems to me that the "Bush Third term"( in reference to McCain) approach is more of the same, and will be enough to give the Republican party a large enough chunk of independents to win.

Just my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 09:31 AM

I do hope you are wrong, BB.

John on the Sunset Coast, I was speaking, of course, of far into the election year there has been more than one candidate. I do believe that they are starting their official campaigns earlier than ever. 15 months, I think they are saying. Can you imagine. Not only does the electorate get tired but the candidates must be exhausted.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 09:56 AM

In order to be competitive, McCain will have to line up an army of right-wing-religious wakkos in order to compete with Obama's army of Democratic elites.

               It looks like it's all about money again, and choosing between the least of two evils.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 10:01 AM

In order to be competitive, McCain will have to line up an army of solid Conservative supporters and the independents in the center in order to compete with Obama's army of left-wing wackos.

But I do agree: "It looks like it's all about money again, and choosing between the least of two evils"

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 10:44 AM

It is strange. Almost everyone who is enabled to talk on radio & TV seems to agree (explicitly or implicitly) that the Bush years are embarrassing and that the Republicans have enough scandals, wars, spyings, tortures, fiscal debacles and general ineptitudes on their record that the Democrats 'ought' to be guaranteed a big win this year........yet, many polls indicate it may be close and NO guarantee.

Why is this? It seems that a certain number of folks simply intend to hide their heads in the sand and ignore this tawdry 8 years because they are, by God, conservative Republicans, and would not vote for ANY Democrat if he guaranteed 2 chickens in every pot! That's fine...these folks are always with us, and their convoluted disclaimers stem from a stubborn mindset that can be found on both sides of the fence. I make this out to be maybe 30-40%....concentrated in certain demographic areas...mostly rural.

However, added to these are some folks who 'might' vote Democratic, except that they also refuse to vote for a man of African heritage....ANY such man, as they have 'fears' of "opening the floodgates" or some other vague worry similar to those expressed when those of African heritage were just trying to get the right to vote.

Added to these are folks who will be swayed by various 'special interest' campaigns about guns, abortions, gay marriages, immigration and the scare tactic of suggestions that Obama 'might' put Bill or Hillary or both on the Supreme court! ☺.
The Republicans are short of money, have a candidate that many of them are FAR from happy with, have almost nothing good to point to in their 8 years in power...by by God, they have tried & true campaign tactics of fear mongering, distortion of positions like 'swift boating' and 'Willie Hortoning' and basic appeals to faulty reasoning that would keep me, your dedicated in-house philosopher, working 24/7 to unravel..(and no one would read it, 'cause it takes 9 times as long to show the faults in a straw man argument as to make one!)
So..I long for the days when the obvious flaws in a Barry Goldwater platform would be overwhelmed by common sense, and I have only cautious optimism about being able to elect this inspiring candidate we have finally confirmed.
It's gonna be a nervous few months.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 10:51 AM

That's politics, Bruce, especially in a world dominated by bandwidth-hungry media: it is always easier to tear something down than it is to get people to subscribe to something or support a change. Making nothing of others is the lazy man's method of thinking. The media sense this and use it the way McDonalds uses salt, fat and sugar to addict their client base.

Campaigning for something is an uphill climb in this environment. Some people find it downright _painful_ to contemplate a reality that doesn't exist yet, a new idea, to imagine things other than they have already been.

A

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 10:54 AM

Let me add that my biggest concern is that, once again, the Electoral College system could spoil an election and allow targeted states to override the will of the majority. It is TIME to get rid of that antiquated process.

Subject: RE: BS: GeneralComments on PresidentialCampaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 10:55 AM

"Campaigning for something is an uphill climb "

Amos,

As I said... If the Democrats want to claim the moral highground, I would hope that they would at least attempt the uphill climb.

That does NOT seem to be the case... AGAIN.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 11:18 AM

Oh bullshit, Bruce.

Obama's platform, the things that he is campaigning for are clearly delineated on his web site.


A

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 11:23 AM

Oh, bullshit, Amos.

I heard Obama say "Bush's third term". Hardly high ground.

If you want to tell me that Obama walks on water, at least admit to yourself that he is getting his feet wet.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 11:24 AM

I also wonder about the use of the term: 'Democratic elite'. Is that kind of like the Mudcat clique? Perception is a wondrous thing.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Stringsinger
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 02:03 PM

Richard Cohen says:

"Wherever I go -- from glittering dinner party to glittering dinner party -- the famous and powerful people I meet (for such is my life)"

This is lamentable for a true journalist. it would be good to talk to some real people.


"I loathe above all the resurgence of racism -- or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought."

It has never gone away. Witness West Virginia, Pennsylvania and all of those spurious
"white working-class voters" which may be mythological in terms of the strength of their numbers but the kind Hillary talked about.

" I am stunned by the numbers of people who have come out to vote against Barack Obama because he is black."

Equal numbers of people have come out to support Obama because he is the best candidate, not because he is black. That's Ferraro's racist crap.

" I am even more stunned that many of these people have no compunction about telling a pollster they voted on account of race -- one in five whites in Kentucky, for instance."

The polls can't be accurate to determine this. Kentucky has been known to be racist
but generalizations are for poll-makers, not for thinking people.

"Those voters didn't even know enough to lie, which is what, if you look at the numbers, others probably did in other states. Such honesty ought to be commendable. It is, instead, frightening."

I am not stunned by this revelation. We are not far away from lynch mobs and slave-owners in our history.

"I acknowledge that some people can find nonracial reasons to vote against Obama -- his youth, his inexperience, his uber-liberalism and, of course, his willingness to abide his minister's admiration for a racist demagogue (Louis Farrakhan) until it was way, way too late."

This statement is in itself racist crap. Youth doesn't mean Obama is not intelligent and would make a good president. McCain has had experience of the wrong sort to make a good president. He's still fighting PTSD. Being a denizen of the Hanoi Hilton is not a good enough qualification. Obama has separated himself fromj Farrakhan and his former minister but right-wing smear merchants like Cohen continuously bring up these falsehoods as if they were some kind of "fact".

"But for too many people, Obama is first and foremost a black man and is rejected for that reason alone. This is very sad."

I don't agree that this is true for too many people. There are legitimate reasons to question Obama about his speech before AIPAC where he sounded like Hillary and McCain as hawkish on Iran. He doesn't oppose incursions into Pakistan and Afghanistan sans diplomacy. There are those who play the race card but the fact that a black man is nominated is evidence that the attitudes of Americans toward race have changed.

"I loathe what has happened to Hillary Clinton. This person of no mean achievement has been witchified, turned into a shrew, so that almost any remark of hers is instantly interpreted as sinister and ugly."

Hillary destroyed her own credibility by insisting that votes in Michigan and Florida
be counted for her. She has peppered her speeches with "I" so much that it's hard to
see how she represents much else. She has attempted to fabricate stories about her role in the settling of Irish peace talks and her visit to Bosnia.

" All she had to do, for instance, was note that it took Lyndon Johnson to implement Martin Luther King's dream, and somehow it became a racist statement."

The implication in this remark was that somehow King, being a black man was not as
effective as LBJ, a white man in implementing this "dream". To paraphrase her, it took a white man to get in done. If this isn't racism, I don't know what is.

"The Obama camp has been no help in this regard, expressing insincere regret instead of a sincere "that's not what she meant."

It is clear what she meant. She was playing the "race card".

"I loathe also what Hillary Clinton has done to herself. The incessant exaggerations, the cheap shots, the flights into hallucinatory history -- that sniper fire in Bosnia, for instance -- have turned her into a caricature of what her caricaturists long claimed she already was. In this campaign, Clinton has managed to come across as a hungry hack, a Janus looking both forward and backward and seeming to stand for nothing except winning. This, too, is sad."

Sad but true. It was about winning for her rather than considering the Dem Party or the electorate.

"I loathe what has happened to Bill Clinton."

He did it to himself.

"I loathe what has happened to the press. I loathe the incessant blogging and commenting and talking and yapping and hype."

Corporations own the media now. This is what you must expect if you rely on conventional news. As to blogging, Cohen obviously has not read all the blogs.

" I hate that Clinton's observation that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June ran on and on when everyone save some indigenous people in the Brazilian rain forest knew what she meant."

This is the height of racism, some how bringing in indigenous people who may have not thought that Hillary was clear on her point and that bringing up RFK's assassination was insensitive, crude, boorish and implied that the country needed her "in case something happened".

" I hate that for days these same outlets discussed the relevancy of whether John McCain could be constitutionally barred from the presidency because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. This, too, is sad."

The only reason that this ever came up was because the Right-wing is obsessed with their vision of what constitutes American citizenship.   This is really a non-issue though.

"What is perhaps most surprising, and sad as well, is what can be seen in the rearview mirror. There, reduced to a speck, is the once-huge expectation that the next president would be a Democrat."

I think it is a hope rather than an expectation since the GOP have totally ruined our country.

" -- but has (and so the GOP will remind us all) kept the nation safe from another attack. No small matter, it will turn out.

this last statement is ridiculous because the NIE had information that could have prevented 911. How did this so-called president keep us safe? By ignoring the warnings in the presidential briefings.

"So I see little to be happy about, little that pleases my jaundiced eye. Yes, voter participation is way up and in the end, the Democrats will choose a woman or an African American and, to invoke that tiresome phrase, history will be made. But this messy nominating process has eroded the standing of both candidates. It has highlighted the reality that racism still runs deep and that misogyny, although more imagined than real, is not yet a wholly spent force. This is an ugly porridge that has been placed before us, turned rancid since the cold, pristine days of Iowa only five months ago. We were, with apologies to Bob Dylan, so much younger then."

I see this as a misplaced rant that has very little force behind it. Of course racism and mysogyny are rampant. But so is the hope of a new America by those who have rejected these things. This is a specious article by someone who has a subtle axe to grind.
His jaundiced eye is blinded by his own prejudice.

BB, this article is bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 02:08 PM

I disagree.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 02:22 PM

BB:

I cannot believe you would resort to the illogic of conflating the two things: Obama uses a pat phrase to characterize McCain; therefore, Obama is not _for_ anything.

The illogic of that sequence is so stark, even you will see it, I am sure.

I agree with you that negative ads are the worst aspect of our campaign heritage; but I think you will see plainly, also, that Obama is not the one who defined the sandbox rules here. You will recall he is terribly inexperienced, so the rules must have been evolved by someone with more years of time in the game, no?

;>)


A

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 02:29 PM

"recall he is terribly inexperienced"

OK, so why is he running for President?


As for my comment, it is the Democratic party that is basing this election on "NOT Bush", as it did the last. That is something Obama seems to be going along with.

It was Obama's stated goal of bringing BOTH parties together that made him appear to be a worthwhile candidate- but from what I have seen, McCain has far more evidence that he can work with BOTH sides of the Senate, and work JOINTLY with members of the other party. Obama has NOT demonstarted that he can reach out to anyone that does not already agree with him.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 03:33 PM

Well, BB, I don't think you're looking very far. Check his record in Illinois, for example.

I think you'll find that he does play well with others and reaches out just fine; but he also does not like being attacked.

A

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 03:44 PM

The campaign INCLUDES "not Bush"...it is not based on
"not Bush".
Did anyone read my post above??? Or is this just a thread where Amos and BB and Rig snipe at each other?
Bush & his 'loyal' followers have gotten us in one of the most awkward situations in US history, and after brief, minimal pretense at distancing himself from 'Bushness', McCain seems to not only courting Bush's help, but is formally embracing mostof the status quo and following pretty closely the same path as Bush...especially about Iraq. So..."Bush's 3rd term" is a very obvious phrase to make that point! If McCain wants to change that, let him tell us why he would be different!

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 04:12 PM

I thought that Richard Cohen's piece was excellent and very much to the point. I am not familiar with the author, so I read it without having any idea that he might have a right-wing (or any other) bias.

I might add that I've been supporting Obama all along, and expect to vote for him in November, but I do not believe that he walks on water, or even that he is all that radiacally different from other politicians. (I am holding out hope that he'll be at least somewhat more creative and open to new ideas than most, and certainly that he'll prove to be more honest and intelligent than the current incumbent.)

One issue that Cohen addressed that resonated with me is how unfairly Ms. Clinton has been accused of "racism" for some of her remarks. For example: Her mention of LBJ's role in the eventual implementation of civil-rights legislation was never meant, and should never have been characterised, as arguing that a "white person" needed to be involved in addition to Dr. King ~ the pertinent fact is that a politician and officeholder needed to be on board before the demands of the movement could be translated into law.

I also agree with Cohen that there is more racism in this country, not less, than what is admitted by poll respondents. But I don't go as far as some do in seeing every vote or opinion for any opponent of Obama to be rooted in racism, any more than I see every instance of disenchantment with Hillary as misogynistic.

Ideally, women and black men should be, and want to be, considered first and foremost as human beings, and (in the context of elections) simply as candidates. And, like every candidate, they have to accept that some individuals will disagree with them, rightly or wrongly, simply on the issues. There is no reason to take it personally when a voter prefers one's opponent, and it's just as wrong to characterize such rejection as prejudice against one's group identity (race/gender/whatever) as it is to characterize it as "personal."

And, yeah, we ALL need a vacation from this exercise in excess.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 05:23 PM

"I also wonder about the use of the term: 'Democratic elite'."


                  For some of us who use that term, the elite are represented by college professors who are Democrats, as opposed to longshoremen what are also Democrats, but who have demonstrably different values and objectives.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Stringsinger
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 05:32 PM

McCain can only work those Democrats who have been co-opted by the Republicans.
His views on Iraq can hardly be said to be unifying.

Once again, being a guest at the Hanoi Hilton does not qualify anyone to be president.

As to experience, there is not one notable foreign policy that McCain has been known for.
He is McBush and with him in office you'll get more years of McSame.

The idea of Hillary being exempt from her meaning of racism is not borne out by her comments about winning "the white working-class vote" which she did not conclusively do.

Bill Clinton's comments about Jesse Jackson revealed his true colors as well.

Hillary deserved every bit of condemnation that she received.

I am a feminist and I think the next VP or President should be Barbara Lee or
Kathleen Sibelius. If Barbara Jordan were still alive, I'd support and vote for her.

There are many better potential women candidates out there than Hillary.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 05:37 PM

Yo, Amos...

The "Obama doesn't stand for anything" thing is the Repub. PR machine at work... And I have to give them credit because 100% of the 25% of folks who still support Bush are parroting it as if it were the gospel...

I think it is funny to hear them... If they had a clue just how uninfornmed they were they would be embarressed... Okay, some wouldn't...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 06:15 PM

""But this messy nominating process has eroded the standing of both candidates.""

From three thousand miles away, THIS is the one sentence which stands out stark, clear, and oh so believable from all that half baked crap about race and misogyny.

I made a comment further up the thread, which I have been constrained to modify, and it is now much more resonant with the impression I got from afar, of an electoral process which seems to have a corrosive effect on those involved.

It now reads:-

Looked at from this side of the Atlantic, your election process is like a 24 hour childbirth.

23 hours of pushing, shoving, and screaming, and a serious likelihood, at the end of the process, of losing the mother, the kid, or even both.

You need an electoral Caesarian option, to excise those who don't recognise defeat, in a hurry, once it becomes clear they are hanging on just to hang on.




"

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 06:19 PM

Rig, you keep referring to longshoremen. Just how many longshoremen do you know in southern Oregon? lol Lots of college professors maybe.

Frankly I don't care for the class divisions that some people cling to even is this country. I recognize that there probably is a difference in lifestyle, aspirations and politics between the hunter and trapper who dropped out of high school and the professor with a doctorate but in this day of computers and instant communication the difference may not be as great as you think.

In Juneau, Alaska, when I was conducting tours at a house museum a tourist said to me, I have to tell someone about this.

I'm a lawyer as it happens, he said, so I went into your court building just to see what you have. I'm on vacation so I wore this Tshirt and jeans, he said, indicating the Tshirt resplendent with a surfing scene.

He said, I was looking around and a man in a suit and tie rushed up to me and said, pointing to my shirt, I've surfed there!

So we talked about surfing in out of the way places and finally he invited me to go have coffee and introduced himself. It was Alaska Superior Court Judge Carpeneti.

And he marveled, That judge didn't know I was a lawyer. What kind of people are you!

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 07:15 AM

Not directly related to the campaign, but another reason NOT to let the same party have the House, Senate, and White House...

Washington Post:

Decline Of the Senate
By Robert D. Novak
Thursday, June 12, 2008; Page A23

Sen. Arlen Specter, age 78, was feeling miserable Monday following chemotherapy the previous Friday. But believing the best antidote was hard work, Specter took the Senate floor with a speech that contrasted sharply from the partisan oratory now customary in the chamber.

Specter, a Republican centrist, has never been much of a partisan, but during five terms he has become a protector of the Senate's faded reputation as the "world's greatest deliberative body." On Monday, Specter deplored Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's use of a parliamentary device called "filling the tree" to prevent the Republican minority from offering amendments to a bill.

As Specter spoke, the Senate chamber, as is typical, was empty, except for freshman Democrat Ben Cardin, there as presiding officer. Specter departed from customary Senate self-congratulation: "The American people live under the illusion that we have a United States Senate. The facts show that the Senate is realistically dysfunctional. It is on life support, perhaps even moribund. The only facet of Senate bipartisanship is the conspiracy of successive Republican and Democratic leaders to employ this procedural device known as filling the tree. It is known that way to insiders, and it is incomprehensible to outsiders."

The device was used last week when Reid called up the bill responding to global warming, producing the state of futility that has haunted his year and a half as majority leader. Characteristically, Reid neither found the support needed to pass the bill nor attempted a compromise with opponents.

Debating an energy tax as gasoline prices hit $4 a gallon defied political logic. But Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, insisted. Reid bowed to her.

To prevent his Democratic colleagues from having to face difficult votes, Reid "filled the tree" with interlocking amendments staving off all other proposed changes. The procedure has been used by majority leaders of both parties since 1985, but it's never been invoked as often as it has by Reid. This marked the 12th time he has resorted to the device.

What followed illustrates the decline of the Senate under Reid.

The Senate fell far short of the 60 votes needed to close debate on the bill. Though Reid blamed Republican intransigence, 10 Democratic senators -- including five-term liberal stalwart Carl Levin of Michigan -- had written Reid last Friday telling him they could not "support final passage of the bill" because of the economic impact it would have on their states. Reid set aside climate change legislation and moved to a bill that would impose an excess-profits tax on oil companies. He next asked senators to close off debate Tuesday, an effort that predictably fell short of the needed 60 votes.

Even for the feckless Senate, last week was extraordinary. When Republicans contended that Reid broke his pledge to confirm three of President Bush's appeals court nominees by Memorial Day, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell retaliated by requiring the entire climate-change bill to be read into the record (consuming more than 10 hours). A half-century ago, when I covered the Senate under Lyndon B. Johnson, such an event would have been headline news. Last week, it was barely noticed.

An unusual result of the current parliamentary situation is that the climate-change bill remains the pending business of the Senate because of Republican refusal to let Reid dispose of it. The GOP strategy is to keep the issue at hand because of its political toxicity. Specter, trying to be an old-fashioned legislator, really wants to detoxify the bill but cannot because of the no-amendment rule. On Tuesday, he asked for hearings on his 16-month-old proposal to prohibit the majority leader from filling the tree.

Reid's conduct is defended with the argument that he is hampered by a one-vote majority and will be less restricted once this year's elections add to the number of Democrats on hand. But LBJ operated with a one-vote margin during the four years that made his reputation as, in biographer Robert Caro's words, "master of the Senate." Johnson relied on maneuver and negotiation.

In contrast, Reid uses arcane parliamentary tactics to transform the Senate into another House of Representatives, where the majority can dictate what amendments its members have to vote on. A bigger Democratic majority next January in itself may not reverse this institutional decline.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: heric
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 11:18 AM

Voting for Obama is the same as voting for New Coke. Voting for McCain is the same as voting for milk that has past its expiration date. yay.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 06:05 PM

Absolutely he should not keep on about McCain's being Bush's third term. It makes him look silly and undignified. Also, this nonsense about he can't choose a woman VP now because it would hurt Hillary's feelings and anger her 18 million ceiling sparkles. Go ahead and choose one and let the sparkles fall where they may. mg

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 02:33 PM

Well, I got this link from my sister, and it made my mind up:

http://www.imvotingrepublican.com/

Smart woman, that sister of mine.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 03:04 PM

Excellent summation!


A

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 05:02 PM

Who's Who in Obamaworld

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: heric
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 02:01 PM

To the political scientists who study historical patterns and trends, there is nothing more certain than Barack Obama's victory in November. . . . [To] the academics who specialize in studying the trends, charting the variables and monitoring the economic reports, . . there is no doubt about the winner in November. It's Obama over Republican Sen. John McCain in a knockout. . . . The keys are based on the thesis that elections turn on the performance of the party in control of the White House, in this case the Republicans. And they don't depend on the particularities of the campaign," Lichtman said.

Not once since 1860 has the party in control of the White House been able to survive if six of Lichtman's 13 keys have gone against it. Right now, seven are against McCain's party, with two others leaning against it.

Those keys measure incumbency, the state of the economy, social unrest, foreign developments such as war, the charisma of the candidates, interparty contests, scandals and third-party challenges.

Lichtman said the two keys still uncertain involve whether the economy falls into recession during the year and whether Obama can be fairly called a particularly charismatic challenger."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20080616-9999-1n16campaign.html

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 06:09 PM

Both of the remaining candidates have pluses and minuses, mostly minuses. I don't really care who wins now.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 06:21 PM

"Voting for Obama is the same as voting for New Coke. Voting for McCain is the same as voting for milk that has past its expiration date."

Heric, you're describing a Morton"s Fork form of a Hobson's Choice. Leastwise that's my take on the coming election.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Jun 08 - 06:24 PM

John - I agree completely!

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 12:56 PM

Commentary: Obama no, McCain maybe

Story Highlights
Glenn Beck says he won't vote for Obama but may not vote for McCain either

I'm a conservative, not a Republican, Beck says

Beck says that because a political party says it stands for something doesn't make it true
By Glenn Beck
CNN

   
Editor's note: Glenn Beck is on CNN Headline News nightly at 7 and 9 ET and also hosts a conservative national radio talk show.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A lot of people don't believe it, but the truth is that I really don't know whom I'm going to vote for this November. It won't be Barack Obama -- he and I simply disagree on too many fundamental issues -- but it also may not be John McCain.

As much as the media and the analysts try to pigeon-hole people as having only one political ideology, the fact is that most people (at least, most "real" people), don't fit neatly into one predetermined set of political beliefs.

I'm no exception. Although I am a "conservative," I'm not a "Republican," and there's a big difference. A true Republican, or a true Democrat, is someone who puts their party above their principles and their candidate above their conscience.

But most of us (or at least those of us who live outside the Beltway) aren't like that. We're more like the mad scientist Frankenstein: We'd like to take a piece of this candidate, a touch of that one and a little slice of the one over there, mash it all together and create someone who's lines up perfectly with our values and beliefs.

Which brings me back to John McCain. Like Obama, McCain and I have fundamental differences on a host of important issues. Sure, I disagree with him less than I do with Obama, but is that really the standard we should use in choosing their candidate? Our country isn't a reality show where we simply elect whoever's left after all the backstabbing and lying is finished.

Is it?

On my radio program, I talk a lot about voting for your values. But as time goes by, we all tend to get buried in the minutiae of campaigns and lose sight of those things. Day after day, the media and analysts feed us stories that line us up against each other like armies getting ready for battle. Standing in the middle isn't an option, so people tend to take a side, even if they don't feel completely comfortable there.

The only way out of that trap is to try to define what it is you really stand for and believe in. After all, how can you say that Obama or McCain reflects your values if you don't even know what those values are?

Chances are that your definition will slant heavily to the values advertised by one of the parties. That's fine, but keep in mind that just because a party says they stand for something doesn't mean it's true.

After all, the Republicans said they stood for smaller government, but the size of our government grew enormously under a Republican president and a Republican majority in Congress. Democrats said they stood for an end to the war in Iraq, but for better or worse, nearly two years after taking over Congress, they don't even have a timetable for withdrawal.

My point is that actions speak louder than words. The "R" and the "D" don't matter if the people we elect don't follow through on their promises.

So what are my core values, the things that I refuse to compromise on? To figure that out, I decided to try to define what I think a conservative really believes.

A conservative believes that our inalienable rights do not include housing, healthcare or Hummers.

A conservative believes that our inalienable rights DO include the pursuit of happiness. That means it is guaranteed to no one.

A conservative believes that those who pursue happiness and find it have a right to not be penalized for that success.

A conservative believes that there are no protections against the hardship and heartache of failure. We believe that the right to fail is just as important as the chance to succeed and that those who do fail learn essential lessons that will help them the next time around.

A conservative believes in personal responsibility and accepts the consequences for his or her words and actions.

A conservative believes that real compassion can't be found in any government program.

A conservative believes that each of us has a duty to take care of our neighbors. It was private individuals, companies and congregations that sent water, blankets and supplies to New Orleans far before the government ever set foot there.

A conservative believes that family is the cornerstone of our society and that people have a right to manage their family any way they see fit, so long as it's not criminal. We are far more attuned to our family's needs than some faceless, soulless government program.

A conservative believes that people have a right to worship the God of their understanding. We also believe that people do not have the right to jam their version of God (or no God) down anybody else's throat.

A conservative believes that people go to the movies to be entertained and to church to be preached to, not the other way around.

A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence.

A conservative believes that a child's education is the responsibility of the parents, not the government.

A conservative believes that every human being has a right to life, from conception to death.

A conservative believes in the smallest government you can get without anarchy. We know our history: The larger a government gets, the harder it will fall.

Those are the things a conservative believes in, and they're the things that I believe in. Now, if only I could find a candidate to match.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 04:00 PM

One Nation No More?
Civics Needs a Boost, but Our Identity Endures

By David S. Broder
Thursday, July 3, 2008; Page A17

Just in time for Independence Day, a conservative think tank has delivered a controversial report asking whether America's national identity is eroding under the pressure of population diversity and educational slackness.

The threat outlined by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in its report, "E Pluribus Unum," strikes me as a bit exaggerated. But with Barack Obama and John McCain debating the "patriotism issue," having a coherent discussion of this matter -- and this short pamphlet is admirably written and well-researched -- is a useful contribution.

The takeoff point for the argument is an observation about the uniqueness of America that was made by Thomas Jefferson -- and by myriad other worthies in the centuries since. They all have drawn attention to the fact that the national identity of America, unlike that of other countries, rests "not on a common ethnicity, but on a set of ideas."

And so, the Bradley scholars say, "knowing what America stands for is not a genetic inheritance. It must be learned, both by the next generation and by those who come to this country. In this way, a nation founded on an idea is inherently fragile."

The ideas that define this country are found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as amplified by Supreme Court decisions and statutes in subsequent years. Those ideas have been tested in crisis and in war, and the leaders who steered the nation through those testing times are the heroes whose legacy we celebrate -- Washington, Lincoln, the two Roosevelts.


What disturbs the Bradley scholars is evidence that our generation is failing to educate the next one on the essentials of the American experiment. "On the 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Civics Test," the report notes, "the majority of eighth graders could not explain the purpose of the Declaration of Independence. Only 5 percent of seniors could accurately describe the way presidential power can be checked by Congress and the Supreme Court." The authors also decry the fact that most colleges and universities allow students to graduate without ever taking a comprehensive course in American history and government.

On this point, I think they have plenty of company -- all across the political spectrum. But they have many other criticisms and a variety of suggestions. Some are trivial, such as scrapping Presidents' Day and bringing back Washington's and Lincoln's birthday holidays. Others are far-reaching and controversial, such as telling all colleges and universities to open their campuses to the ROTC.

When it comes to the treatment of immigrants, the Bradley team sees a real threat in such things as multilingual ballots and bilingual classes. Such accommodations to the growing diversity of the population could lead to "many Americas, or even no America at all," they maintain. "Historical ignorance, civic neglect and social fragmentation might achieve what a foreign invader could not."

That degree of pessimism seems unwarranted. The authorities quoted in this report, most of them drawn from conservative academia, manage to overlook the evidence that there is still plenty of vitality in the American system.

Young people may not know the Constitution as well as we would like, but they found their way to polling places in record numbers this year and joined enthusiastically in many campaigns. And they volunteer for all kinds of good works in their communities.

I have not worried about the fundamental commitment of the American people since 1974. In that year, they were confronted with the stunning evidence that their president had conducted a criminal conspiracy out of the Oval Office. In response, the American people reminded Richard Nixon, the man they had just recently reelected overwhelmingly, that in this country, no one, not even the president, is above the law. They required him to yield his office.

That is not the sign of a nation that has lost its sense of values or forgotten the principles on which this system rests. And that is something worth celebrating on more than the Fourth of July.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 05:03 PM

A good place to start in any presidential campaign is to see what each candidate believes in and stands for. Here is one:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/


Here is another:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/

For a more comprehensive look, of course, we also need to read the views of both supporters and antagonists.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jul 08 - 05:31 PM

Good for Cindy McCain Wed Jul 9, 1:24 PM ET



The Nation -- Good for Cindy McCain.

The Republican who would be First Lady will travel to Africa this month as part of a a bipartisan delegation that will visit Rwanda on behalf of the ONE Campaign to address extreme poverty and preventable diseases.

The wife of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain will travel to Africa from July 17 to July 23 with former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and a pair of leading former chiefs of staff in the Clinton White House, the Center for American Progress' John Podesta and former California Congressman and OMB director Leon Panetta, on a trip led by ONE Vote '08 Co-Chairs and former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, and Bill Frist, R-Tennessee.

"America is forging a legacy of hope and survival in some of the world's poorest places, giving millions of families access to medicines, clean water and the chance at an education," ONE President and C.E.O. David Lane said. "Our next president has the opportunity to finish the job --- to finally erase the kind of suffocating, needless poverty that claims thousands of lives each day. We know what works and we know the way, but we need our next president to show the will."

While he did not do enough, George Bush did a lot more than previous presidents to increase U.S. support for anti-AIDS programs and usually (although not always) sound development projects in Africa.

Bush's commitment needs to be expanded upon and improved upon.

This must happen no matter who is elected president in November.

Getting Cindy McCain to Africa, showing her initiatives that are working and encouraging her to become an advocate within a potential McCain administration for anti-poverty programs is smart -- and necessary -- politics.

And Cindy McCain ought not be dismissed as a mere election-year tourist when it comes to these concerns. She has served on the board of CARE International, a ONE coalition partner, since 2005. She is, as well a founder of the American Voluntary Medical Team, which organizes trips for medical personnel to provide emergency care to regions that have been hit by natural disasters and wars.

Cindy McCain's presence on this trip fits with the message of the One Campaign, which has organized more than 2.4 million people in all 50 states, along with more 100 of the country's largest non-profit, advocacy and humanitarian organizations to say that the work of fighting extreme poverty and preventable diseases should be a bipartisan endeavor.

Come to think of it: Instead of jetting around the world for self-serving photo opportunities this summer, wouldn't it be great if Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama traveled together to Africa? They could, in the spirit of the ONE Campaign, issue a joint statement committing that, no matter who wins, the authority and the resources of the United States will be used to "Make Poverty History."

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jul 08 - 07:37 PM

IF there is any concern about the nation having become divided, you can lay it at the feet of the Uniter Decider Deceiver.


A

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 01:35 PM

"A good place to start in any presidential campaign is to see what each candidate believes in and stands for..."


                   It's pretty obvious that Obama is headed for disaster with his immigration proposals.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 04:49 PM

Washington Post


Worse Than Mud

By Danielle Allen
Thursday, July 10, 2008; Page A15

Since time immemorial there has been political mud-slinging, including heaps during the period of the American founding, as Edward J. Larson noted on this page [" The Founding Mudslingers," op-ed, July 4]. But the eternal and universal nature of mud-slinging provides no basis for judging when the balance between it and forthright political discourse falls within a range healthy for democracy. As the Internet age matures, we should ask: Are we getting the balance right?

The philosopher Machiavelli, in a chapter of "Discourses on Livy" called "As much as accusations are useful to a Republic, so much so are calumnies pernicious," makes a useful distinction between accusation and calumny, or slander. Accusers present themselves and their evidence publicly so their accusations can be debated by the accused. That debate provides a reasonable basis for public deliberation. But calumny is anonymous, secret. Spread far and wide, it provides no real opportunity for debate or testing of evidence.

Moreover, accusations, even those caked in mud, can be true. Calumny is false by definition. The problem we face is not mudslinging but calumny, an antique word resurrected by the Internet era.

Machiavelli had seen clear examples of the problem. He wrote:

"Whoever reads the history of [Florence], will see how many calumnies have been perpetrated in every time against those citizens who occupied themselves in its important affairs. Of one, they said he had robbed money from the Community; of another, that he had not succeeded in an enterprise because of having been corrupted; and of yet another, because of his ambitions had caused such and such inconvenience. Of the things that resulted there sprung up hate on every side, whence it came to divisions, from divisions to Factions (Sects), (and) from Factions to ruin."


How important is calumny today? In 2000, calumny effectively led to John McCain's defeat in South Carolina. That smear campaign against him used robo-calls and fliers, and e-mail also played an important role, as the New York Times reported in February 2000. Arguably, calumny defeated John Kerry in 2004, and the infamous Swift boat television ads of that summer were, importantly, preceded by an aggressive Internet campaign begun that January that included perhaps the first viral campaign e-mail: a computer-generated image of Kerry and Jane Fonda beside each other on a podium at an antiwar rally. The image originally emerged at the Web site FreeRepublic.com, and Fonda had not in fact been at the event. But the damage was done. Today we are seeing viral anti-Obama e-mails, some of which I have traced to some of the same origin points for the 2000 and 2004 smear campaigns.

Since 2000, then, Internet- and e-mail-based slanders have had significant effects on national elections and have clearly shifted the balance between reasonable and calumnious discourse in a negative direction. In this regard, the Internet has given calumny a new level of consequence for our politics.


Machiavelli offered an account of calumny's threat to free republics: "Calumnies sting without disabling; and those who are stung being more moved by hatred of their detractors than by fear of the things they say against them, seek revenge." We can see these very sentiments in John McCain's response to the apparent involvement of a man named Ted Sampley, who operated a Web site devoted to attacking John Kerry in 2004. (Sampley's central Web site, U.S. Veteran Dispatch, appears to feed some of the e-mail against Obama, and he apparently also was involved in the South Carolina campaign against McCain in 2000, though he certainly has not been alone in these efforts.) As the New York Times reported in 2004, McCain described Sampley as "one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter." Machiavelli argued that calumny breeds dangerous levels of factionalism specifically by motivating hatred.

But there is another issue at play here. McCain described Sampley as "an enemy of the truth." The problem with calumny is not merely that it motivates hatred or that it is simply dishonest. Even more significant, effective dishonesty -- calumny that succeeds in its goals -- undermines cultural commitments to truth by encouraging cynicism. When lies work, why not lie? Yet when a culture ceases to honor the truth, it loses its ability to preserve law, justice and fairness.

A right to free speech is no excuse for lying. While strongly protected rights of free speech are critical to a healthy democracy, rights bring responsibilities. Citizens should, as a standard practice, take responsibility for their views -- the matters of fact and principle that they wish to put before the public for consideration -- by appending their full, legal names to their expressions, even in blog posts. While there are times and places for anonymity, it should be the exception. Unfortunately, the Internet has brought us to a point where anonymity is the rule, not the exception. Rather than facilitating free speech, this is corrosive to democratic discourse. It's time to rebuild a responsible culture in which people speak in their full, legal names and honor the truth.

Mud we can laugh about. Calumny we can't.

Danielle Allen is a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study. Her latest book is "Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown v. Board of Education." She has donated to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 05:44 PM

Good for Danielle Allen; she has a good head on her shoulders.



A

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 08 - 08:53 PM

In election news, Jesse Jackson was caught talking trash in the vernacular. Bernie Mac was accused of making jokes that may have been politically incorrect when viewed from a certain perspective!!

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 12 Jul 08 - 08:53 PM

failed to sign my freakin name

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: heric
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:44 PM

In election news for Monday, July 14:

A TV talk show host referred to Obama as being like an Oreo (black on the outside but white on the inside) and a magazine printed a caricature of Obama wearing Arab garb which has been criticized in some quarters as being in questionable taste. This follows earlier news that weak and non-PC jokes were made by comedian Bernie Mac in Obama's presence.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: GUEST,GoGreens!
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 10:47 AM

Cheer up, one and all!

Now you will likely have the ability to vote for authentic change, and change history as you do it!

Last weekend, the Green Party of the US nominated Cynthia McKinney to run as their endorsed candidate for POTUS.

McKinney was the first African American woman to represent Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives. This former Democrat served six terms in Congress before losing her 2006 bid for re-election. She will be noted in the annals of history as the first African American woman in Presidential history to represent a major party in pursuit of the highest office in the nation.

She stands on the shoulders of several other notable African American women candidates: Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (1972), Dr. Isabelle Masters (1984, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004), Leonora B. Fulani (1988 and 1992) and Senator Carole Moseley Braun (2004).

As delegates and supporters waved \"Paint the White House Green\" signs, McKinney declared, \"I am asking you to vote your conscience, vote your dreams, vote your future, vote Green.\"

Resolutely anti-war and anti-imperialist, firmly committed to defending individual liberties and determined to hold the outgoing president and vice president to account – as a member of the House in 2006, McKinney introduced the first articles of impeachment against President Bush – McKinney is an ardent advocate for national health care, expanded education spending and energy policies that emphasize mass transportation and conservation rather than rewarding oil-company profiteering.

And, as she notes, \"I have a record of standing up on all of these issues.\"

It is that record, and her willingness to stand on it, that distinguishes McKinney from Democrat Obama and Republican John McCain, both of whom are being accused of changing positions in order to reposition their campaigns for November.

Disillusioned? Support your local ballot access initiatives, and Go Green!

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 01:01 PM

Angelina Undecided on Prez Endorsement
August 11, 2008 @ 8:56 am


The McCain and Obama camps are not doubt salivating over the thought of getting Angelina Jolie's seal of approval.

The actress is still weighing her options when it comes to picking a president.

In a statement to Variety she says, "I have not decided on a candidate."

"I am waiting to see the commitments they will make on issues like international justice, refugees and how to address the needs of children in crisis around the world."

In June, Jolie told Entertainment Weekly that when she and Clint Eastwood, a Republican, worked on The Changeling they would discuss politics.

She said, "Actually, we don't disagree as much as you'd think. I think people assume I'm a Democrat."

"But I'm registered independent and I'm still undecided. So I'm looking at McCain as well as Obama."

Meanwhile, beau Brad Pitt has not officially endorsed a candidate, either.

But still, we wouldn't be surprised to see them on the guest list at George Clooney's fundraiser for Barack Obama next month.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 02:43 PM

"General Comments on Presidential Campaign"

Ahem!

Too long. Make that...WAY too long.

Too expensive.

Phony.

Duplicitous.

Media-dominated and quite possibly rigged.

Will that do?

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 03:48 PM

Be careful. That is Saint Barrack you are talking about.


We have the best politicians that money can buy- Don't you?

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 04:01 PM

I can't wait until it starts to go negative!

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 04:08 PM

Too long, too much in the media AND too presumptious!!! Why bother to have any conventions for either party? We've been told who we will nominate.

ohmygawd...a Barack supporter just said that!

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 04:32 PM

"We have the best politicians that money can buy- Don't you?"

You betcha! ;-D   But we get the whole silly damn thing over in a mere 6 weeks.

Match that, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 04:45 PM

Sounds like you are not getting your money's worth.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 06:02 PM

Well, some people here might agree with you on that. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 07:57 PM

John McCain has fueled speculation today that he may pick Tom Ridge as his second -- apparently testing the water for public reaction. PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT by putting duct tape up on your windows!

Yes We Can! The Time is Now! I shall go to Korea!

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 08:01 PM

Boy, he could hardly do anything dumber than pick up someone so roundly identified with the Bush Nightmare.


A

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Amos
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 09:05 AM

SOrry, LH, but as a Professional Outsider you have no opinion. ;>)


A

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 09:33 PM

When it comes to Cam Pain and suffering, I think we are all suffering from a campaign overdose.

Subject: RE: BS: General Comments on Presidential Campaign
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 01:20 AM

My opinion is that you are in error, Amos. ;-)